


It's Easier to Break A Mind Than Put It Back Together

by heartinhand221 (Illusinia)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Discussions of abuse, F/M, Mind Control, discussions of brainwashing, discussions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 21:44:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1794229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illusinia/pseuds/heartinhand221
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was only by sheer luck that they'd captured him. If she'd been any slower and Sam hadn't been armed with the tranquilizer, they never would have been able to bring him down. Steve had dragged him back and Stark had provided the lab and equipment they were using to restrain him. He hadn't attacked per say, at least not with the same ferocity as before. From the sporadic Hydra reports they'd managed to intercept, they knew that he'd gone missing when Hydra's plan had failed. But they'd found him; he was safe with them.</p><p>Now to convince him of that fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Easier to Break A Mind Than Put It Back Together

**Author's Note:**

> So this takes place after the Winter Soldier. How far after, I'm not really sure. It's just after at this point though.

It was odd to see him so silent, so at peace, even if the peace was temporary. She never remembered him being at peace. It always seemed as if something hovered over him- a darkness she hadn't been aware of at the time. Never had she ever even suspected the torture he'd faced at the hands of the monsters who'd tried to create their own Frankenstein. Even now, she didn't know, couldn't imagine the torment they put him through in creating the Winter Soldier. But none the less, she had to imagine the worst.

 

It was only by sheer luck that they'd captured him. If she'd been any slower and Sam hadn't been armed with the tranquilizer, they never would have been able to bring him down. Steve had dragged him back and Stark had provided the lab and equipment they were using to restrain him. He hadn't attacked per say, at least not with the same ferocity as before. From the sporadic Hydra reports they'd managed to intercept, they knew that he'd gone missing when Hydra's plan had failed. But they'd found him; he was safe with them.

 

Now to convince him of that fact.

 

Heavy footfalls echoed up from behind her, heralding the arrival of either Steve or Sam. Steve, if she had to guess. He would be anxious to check on his best friend. The problem was, there might not be much of Bucky left at this point. Not right now, at least. Somewhere inside that mans head, the man Steve knew as Bucky may still reside, fragmented and broken though he may be. Finding that man? That was going to be a challenge, one she wasn't sure Steve could face. The man is a super soldier, not chiseled from stone (no matter what he looks like). His capacity for compassion and love is monumental, which is what makes him a good man.

 

But compassion and love won't bring Bucky back right now. Knowledge will: knowledge of what they did, how they twisted him into this creature. Those are the things that will bring him to the surface, where compassion and love can be wrapped around him until his wounds have scabbed over. He will never be healed- the scars are something he will bare for the rest of this life. But scars can fade into little more than faint reminders of a rocky past if you let them. Never forgotten, but not forefront and paramount: that's the best people like them can hope for.

 

“Is he awake yet?” asked Steve quietly, his voice a bit shaky. Hopeful, fearful, it's hard to say what the man was feeling.

 

“They've got him pretty heavily sedated. He won't come out of it for a little while,” she explained without taking her eyes from the man before them. Her voice cracked as she spoke, the words sounding softer than she'd wanted them to. Breaking isn't an option right now, not while the man before them is still so broken. They need to be strong so this broken man can lean on them as he heals.

 

Steve made a noise, an unhappy one, and raised a hand to the glass. His voice was distressed and soft as he spoke, so lost and confused it was almost painful to hear. “What did they do to you, Bucky?”

 

“You don't want to know.” He wasn't looking for a response, but she wasn't going to pretend like there wasn't an answer. And the truth is, that answer is one Steve shouldn't know. At least not right now, while the world is in chaos and everything has gone to hell.

 

She can see him turn towards her from the corner of her eyes, though she never looks directly at him. It won't do for him to see she's glimpsed what he went through; some of it is part of her own personal nightmare as well. And even if she does somewhat trust this man, she doesn't want him to see her as the monster she was. Not when she's worked so hard to become the person she is now.

 

“Natasha.” Concern, curiosity, and a hint of fear for what he doesn't know color his voice among the determination and clear hesitation of distrust. “I thought he shot you.”

 

“He did,” confirmed Natasha quietly, her hand sliding over her scar. “He shot me in the stomach, like I told you.”

 

She could have gotten the scar removed at any time while SHIELD was still around; had the injury removed until it was little more than a thin pink line and not the jagged wound it is. Truthfully, if she'd just let it heal, it would have been little more than a small pink line. But she hadn't let it heal, had refused the processes that would make the scar invisible because she wanted the _reminder_. She needed to _remember_ that the Winter Soldier was her enemy when she was with SHIELD. What had gotten her shot wasn't just her attempts to shield her charge: it had also been her reluctance to shoot the man who'd stood in front of her. She'd been the only one he left alive, and she'd never been able to figure out why. The options were too many to count.

 

“And that's all?” pressed Steve, his focus completely on her now. “That's the only contact you had with him?”

 

It was hard to be under his stare, that weary but hopeful stare, and not just tell him everything. Then again, maybe he should know more than he did. Not everything of course, but maybe more than he does. Now that she knows who he is to the man before them, maybe he deserves to know more.

 

Shifting a little, her hand continuing to rest over the scar on her hip, she focused entirely on the Winter Soldier as she spoke. “I knew him as James decades ago, before Hydra somehow got a hold of him. The only thing I can think of is that they stole him from a KGB source; there's no way the Soviets would have given up their best weapon.”

 

“Weapon?” sputtered Steve, his voice shifting to more of a growl. “Bucky is a _man_ not a _machine_!”

 

Raising her eyes at last from the prone form in the examination room, she met Steve's eyes with the calm look she plastered to her face when the reality of what she was feeling was too much. “I know that, Steve. I'm well aware he's a human being, just like us. But to the Soviets, he was a weapon just like all of the members of the KGB were.” Pausing, she added softly, eyes sliding to the glass again: “Just like I was.”

 

It was only the second time she'd ever admitted that to anyone. The first had been to Clint and Coulson, one night in a dark hotel in the middle of some desert with alcohol that wasn't nearly strong enough and a night time chill that could freeze your blood. Even now, the words nearly stuck in her throat as she spoke them. It was hard to admit that she was just another weapon in her motherland's arsenal, that the government hadn't given a shit about her because they could always replace her. It was hard to face the fact that she'd been manipulated, brainwashed, and lied to from childhood.

 

“Just like you were?” repeated Steve, his voice taking on the horrified tones she'd expected. Except it didn't sound like he was horrified by her, but by what had been done to her. It was a twist she hadn't expected.

 

“Yeah,” confirmed Natasha quietly, eyes flicking to Steve for a moment before looking away again. “They made him to be a weapon and they treated him like one. They treated all of us like weapons, not humans.” Swallowing slightly, she forced her way forwards, dodging any further attempts by Steve to ask questions. They're talking about James, not her. “He trained me for a while and we were partners for a few years after that. I played bait and he took down the targets from afar. I would infiltrate a building and he would provide me with cover. I would cause a distraction while he assassinated whatever target we were given. And when we weren't in the field, they locked us away with the rest of their weapons until we were needed again.” The memory of the cryo-chambers still haunted her mind sometimes. “I'm not completely sure what Hydra did to him, but I can guess. It's going to be hard to bring him back.”

 

“You think it can be done though,” stated Steve, latching onto her last comment like it was some kind of a life line. Truthfully? She wasn't sure. There were too many unknowns, but Steve had started something and she was sure of that. His actions had changed, which meant something else was as well. “How do we undo it?”

 

That was the big question in the room. How do they undo the effects of brainwashing when they aren't sure how he was brainwashed to begin with? When it's impossible to know what hell Hydra put him through to break him?

 

Shrugging, she looked back at Steve finally, meeting his eyes as calmly as she could. “We talk to him, remind him who we are and that he isn't alone. We try to get him to tell us what was done to him so we can help undo it.” Again, she paused, considering what she wanted to say next. Giving Steve false hope was the last thing she wanted to do, but all the same it was the only hope they had. “He tracked us down, he came to us. It might be because we were his last targets or it might be because somewhere inside, he remembers who we are on some level. If it's option 2, we can work with it. If it's option 1, then I don't know what we do. We'll just have to figure something out.”

 

Steve nodded slowly, leaning forward against the frame of the glass. “I'm not loosing him again.”

 

“I know,” assured Natasha. She already knew that if worse came to worse and they had to eliminate James, it would fall on her to do. That thought was painful, but it was one she'd made peace with a long time ago. He'd trained her, he'd been one of the only men she actually could say she loved, but in their world that meant she would also potentially have to be his executioner. He wasn't James right now, not the man she'd known as a teenager or loved as a young adult. He was taking orders from a different master and if she had to take him out to protect the people around her, then she would.

 

\----------------------------

 

It was nearly an hour later he began to stir. Not immediate awareness, but his fingers twitched and his head moved. She knew someone needed to be inside with him when he woke and that it needed to be her. If he reacted badly or became violent, she knew how to disable him. She'd been where he was now, knew what to say to try and talk him down. If he could be talked down at all.

 

Immediately, Steve moved for the door. His hand on the handle before she stopped him. “Steve, let me.”

 

“He's my friend Natasha,” growled Steve, his body tensing and a combination of helplessness, need, desperation, and determination flooding his voice. “Let me go in.”

 

“No, Steve,” stated Natasha calmly. If she got upset, it would just make things worse. She was used to calm, so calm she would try to stay. Calm and reason were what Steve needed at the moment from her. “You've never woken up, drugged, strapped to a table in hostile territory. You don't know the fear, the frantic thought processes, any of what comes with that moment of realization. I know you're his friend, but you are also the last person who knows what to do to calm someone down from a panicked frenzy. And believe me when I say, he's afraid and he will be internally panicking. Every second in there, he's going to be looking for an escape until he realizes he's not in danger. And the last thing he knows is that you are his enemy.”

 

“The same applies to you,” countered Steve, his eyes narrowing. “What if both of us go in?”

 

“Too many people, too many threats,” stated Natasha simply. “We need him calm. I'm the least threatening looking and I've been exactly where he is. I know what's going through his mind and I know the best ways to try to counter it. Let me go in, Steve. You're compromised.”

 

“He's my best friend,” ground out Steve, hand tightening on the handle. “Bucky and I have been through hell together.”

 

“Exactly,” stated Natasha. “You and _Bucky_ have been through hell. He isn't Bucky right now, Steve. He's not Bucky and he's not James. He's the Winter Soldier, a man working for Hydra. Right now? We need to convince him that we won't hurt him and you don't know how to do that. You don't know how to talk someone like him down. I do. If you go in there calling him Bucky and trying to remind him who you are, you'll just aggravate him and make things _worse_. He's been told who his friends and enemies are since he came into Soviet hands. He's had everything in his life dictated since the Soviet's began to modify him. And trying to remind him of something from _before_ that life will just make him angry. We need him calm and we need him to trust us. So let me calm him down.”

 

She can see her words sinking in. His eyes move to the door handle as his hand loosens it's grip and finally gives it up. He still looks like he doesn't want to give up, but her words have reached him all the same. No part of him wants to make things  _worse_ for James.

 

“Fine,” sighed Steve, his hand falling from the door handle as he backed away. “But if I think things are going bad, I'm coming in.”

 

“Understood,” stated Natasha simply, her hand curling over the handle. She feels bad, telling Steve that he'll basically make things worse for his friend, but it's the truth. Right now, James needs to focus on the present and not the past. The past might help establish a rapport, but it's the present they're wrestling with. “I'll let you know if you can come in. Just give me the chance to see where he is first and calm him down.”

 

“Right,” sighed Steve, moving back to the window. “Just go easy on him, he's not a bad guy.”

 

“I know,” assured Natasha before she pushed open the door to the room and stepped inside with a pounding heart. James still hadn't come to complete consciousness, his head tossing about every now and again as some horrible image flashed through his mind. Instinctively, she wanted to reach out for him as she had when they'd slept side by side and a nightmare had wormed its way into his mind. Before, she would have carded her fingers through his hair, keeping her distance in case he woke up violently, and whispered soothing words of Russian into the air. Now, she wasn't sure he'd react well to the touch. But the Russian....

 

Quietly and calmly, she began whispering reassurances in Russian into the small room. The echo wasn't massive but it was enough to bring the quiet words to a decibel loud enough for him to hear. Slowly, the thrashing of his head slowed, though his fingers kept twitching. It was something though, even if she was pretty sure the action was instinctive and not memory related.

 

Moments later came the first fluttering of his eyes, his lids lifting away to reveal the beautiful brown orbs she hadn't seen in decades. And as she predicted, they almost immediately shut down. His body tensed as no sign of recognition filtered along his facial features and his arms instinctively pulled at his bonds. She compensated by moving across the room away from him, despite wanting to step closer to offer him the comfort she once had. It wouldn't help; he didn't remember her right now. She didn't want to think about the fact he possibly never would remember her again.

 

At this moment, most people would start with commands: relax, we won't hurt you, you're safe. Steve would have started with those. But people like her and James knew them for what those words so often were: meaningless platitudes meant to trick someone into letting their guard down. Both of them were trained to assume the worse when those words left someone's mouth. There were better ways to reassure people.

 

Carefully watching his face, she slipped into Russian with ease, her native tongue feeling heavy and familiar on her lips. “[You're in a medical facility in New York. We aren't SHIELD, Hydra, or KGB.]”

 

Yes, those could all be lies and he knew it. Likely, he wouldn't trust a thing she said and she was well aware of that. Her only hope was by giving him some information, it might help ease his mind. Using Russian would hopefully place his mind into a mental state associated with his KGB years. It was still violent and torturous, she knew that for a fact, but it could also help settle him. He'd trusted her once and, even if he couldn't remember her now, that trust may be ingrained enough to come forward regardless of his own memories.

 

He offered no response to her words, just pulled at his restraints further. Stark had done a good job with the restraints though, forging them from high-strength steel. Multiple restraints running up each arm and leg kept him from moving enough to either hurt himself or break free and a sedative was on hand to knock him out again if he did manage to start to break free somehow.

 

Continuing in Russian, Natasha remained against the wall but moved so she was standing directly in his line of sight. “[We brought you here because we want to help you. It's hard to accept and I know this, but you are being manipulated by Hydra. Have been manipulated in the past by the KGB. I don't know what you remember, but some of it may not be true and some might be.]”

 

He glanced up at her barely, eyes narrowing as he finally spoke. And as Natasha had been hoping, when he did speak it was in Russian. “[You captured me to stop me. I'm not stupid.]”

 

“[You're right, we did],” confirmed Natasha, leaning herself against the back wall. He was speaking, that was more than she'd hoped for. “[We brought you here because you were trying to kill us and we wanted to stop you. But as you'll notice, you're also alive and unharmed.]”

 

Silence met her words. His eyes, ever distrusting and weary, slid over her body posture like he expected her to lash out at him any second. Well, waking up restrained would put that idea in his head. How many times had he woken up restrained to some table, ready to be tortured? How many times had she? Too many.

 

“[You weren't brought here for us to hurt you],” remarked Natasha softly, meeting his eyes from across the room. He wouldn't believe a word she said, and she knew that. The point of all of this was to start eating away at whatever Hydra had done to him while showing him she wasn't going to physically hurt him. Mentally, there wasn't much she could do to _avoid_ hurting him. Just seeing her would possibly cause some memories to push against whatever barriers Hydra had managed to secure. When her own memories had been modified (and they had, many times), sometimes it only took the smallest thing to start breaking those barriers down. “[You don't remember us, you don't remember who we are. Hydra made sure of that. But once, a long time ago, we were your friends.]”

 

“[I was never your friend],” growled James, eyes turning dark. “[I don't even know you.]”

 

Those words cut deep. She'd expected them, but they still cut deep. Then again, who was to say her own memories of the man in front of her were correct? As she'd said, her memories had been altered before.

 

“[I know],” stated Natasha simply, her voice completely neutral. Keeping him calm was what she needed to do. It would be impossible to keep him completely calm, but she didn't want to send him into a psychotic break either. If he became to violent, he might hurt himself and it could worsen whatever damage Hydra did. “[I don't expect you to. You serve Hydra now.]”

 

“[No],” snapped James, a growl leaving him as he winced and shook his head. “[Yes! No! Stop trying to confuse me!]”

 

“[I'm not trying to confuse you, James],” assured Natasha, keeping her face neutral even as she internally frowned. His confused loyalties were something she _hadn't_ been expecting. Had the no been a slip-up because he'd believe she would accuse him of working for someone else? Or was it because his memories were already beginning to jumble together? For the first time, she wondered if Steve _should_ have been in the room with her. Then again, Steve would probably be too emotional to handle this. Everything right now had to be on James' terms, within certain limits. “[This is your show. I'm simply stating the facts as I know them.]”

 

“[Your facts are wrong],” insisted James. He was fighting back, anger running below the surface. It's more visible reaction than she'd ever seen from him. He was a stone-cold killer for the KGB, and yet here he is, pulling at his restraints and trying actively to fight with his words. Something about this is wrong. This isn't the state she was expecting to find him in.

 

“[Then correct me],” invited Natasha calmly, taking a risk and stepping one step closer but no further. The distance was helping him feel safe and she knew that, but something about his state of mind was wrong. He should have been silent, more closed off, and far more certain. Instead, he was confused and lashing out. Whatever was happening, she needed to figure it out. If his memories had already started to break through, they could use that as a foundation for moving forward. “[Who do you work for?]”

 

“[I'm not falling for that trick],” snarled James, his eyes turning to ice before her. “[You should know better.]” The words had barely left his mouth when his brow furrowed, like he wasn't sure where the words had even come from.

 

It was an opening she needed to take. Whatever was going on in James' mind was screwing with his training. This is more back-talk than he should have given her, and she needed to know why. “[Why should I know better?]”

 

James scoffed, his eyes narrowing at her in suspicion. “[The infamous Natalia Romanov knows how to interrogate a man. I'm not stupid.]”

 

“[Again, I never said you were],” stated Natasha simply, her voice remaining calm even as her heart began to beat faster. He knew her name.

 

It wasn't much- in fact, it's entirely possible that Hydra had passed the information along to him at one point or another. But it was the  _way_ he said her name that had her on guard. Natalia, not Natasha. Natasha was the name given to her in SHIELD. It was the adjustment they'd made when she came over.  _No one_ called her Natalia anymore. Not even Stark since he found out it supposedly wasn't her real name. 

 

Then their was his repeated statement: I'm not stupid. It wasn't a phrase she'd ever heard him use before in the KGB. When he was training her, hell even when she tried to trick him without his permission, he never said those words. Even the way they were translated was weird: like his mind was translating the sentence directly into Russian from English rather than contextually changing it. Could it have been an English statement common to him before he was taken by the KGB? She would need to ask Steve.

 

“[Why are you using your kid gloves, Natalia?]” James' challenge drew her focus completely on the man before her again. She couldn't let her mind wonder far as they spoke. Anything strange would just need to be filed away for later use. “[You know how to extract information, why aren't you trying?]”

 

Shifting slightly, Natasha walked to the wall along the side of the room and took up a position against it. It would make him more comfortable if she didn't take on any state that could be mistaken for aggression. “[Maybe I don't feel the need to.]” Hiding their intentions from him would just create problems- it was better to be vaguely upfront than even marginally deceiving him. “[We took you to stop you, but that doesn't mean we want something from you.]”

 

“[Everyone wants something],” stated James, his eyes hardening as he pressed himself back into the table. “[Do your worst, Natalia.]”

 

It was as good as a dismissal; he was done talking. Whatever remainder of James or Bucky or whoever else was running around inside his skull had been over-whelmed by the Winter Soldier again. The strain of humanity she'd been speaking with was gone again, leaving only the shell of a man in it's place.

 

Shaking her head, she turned to the door and stepped outside. As soon as the door was shut, Steve was in front of her. For a moment, she thought he would yell at her for being too harsh or misstepping and sending James back into his shell. Instead, the super-soldier gave her a long, knowing look and cleared his throat. “I'm sorry.”

 

“Sorry for what?” queried Natasha, one eyebrow rising in confusion. What he was apologizing for, she couldn't even begin to guess. She'd been expecting James' shut down, she'd known he would stop talking eventually. But for Steve, it was probably a surprise, a sign she did something wrong. So why was he apologizing?

 

“I'm sorry for arguing with you when you wanted to go in alone,” stated Steve simply, eyes sliding to the glass that separated them from James. “If I'd gone in there...well, I couldn't understand what he said but the tone was pretty clear. I don't think I could have stayed that calm.”

 

“It's hard to do,” admitted Natasha, allowing herself to lean against the wall. “He knows more than he thinks though. Some of his memories are still there and intact.”

 

“So what do we do?” asked Steve with a sigh, one hand sliding through his hair uncertainly.

 

What were they supposed to do? There wasn't exactly a standardized protocol for handling brainwashed super-soldiers. Or abused men who were frequently locked into stasis. The thought of those cold, liquid filled chambers, the sense of slipping away into a sleep the occupant knew they wouldn't wake up from for possibly years despite the fact that they would be fed information concerning all major political changes that would impact their jobs....

 

 _Stasis, of course._ The stasis chambers they'd been kept in between missions. One of the effects of _not_ being put into that chamber again after a certain period of time passed was that her own memories had started to straighten themselves out. They'd taken her out for a mission, which had turned into ten. By the time she had defected, she'd been out of the chamber for nearly 6 years. And her mind had felt clearer, more like her own, than it had since before she could remember. Things that had been erased or altered had started to come back.

 

At the time she'd attributed it to switching sides and not being constantly re-exposed to the lies that were keeping her docile (relatively). But the stasis chamber was the one thing she and James had shared completely. If he was starting to remember, maybe there was a connection. Who knew how long he'd been out of stasis though- the whole thing could just be a fluke. Whatever it was though, James had been exposed to lies a lot more recently than she had been when her memories started to return. And she doubted Hydra had been keeping him in stasis; not with this political atmosphere.

 

Still, it was a guess at best with no evidence to back any of that up. If the chambers did have some kind of an impact though, his memories and sense of self would only grow stronger. He'd start to come back, assuming there was no actual damage done to his brain. Who knew what would happen then.

 

“We keep talking to him,” stated Natasha at last, shaking her head as she moved to stand at the glass window. James was laying still inside, eyes closed and ignoring the world. “We keep trying to get through and we hope it's enough. That's all we can do.”

 

Keep trying, keep fighting. That's all they could do. And as long as they continued to try, Hydra wouldn't win.


End file.
